The Tibetan writer Woeser, in her blog entry of November 24, relayed
as a blog entry some information that had been left over some time as
anonymous comments on her blog. The comments, by Wiki Independence
(“维基让赞”（“让赞”是藏语，意为“独立”）discussed some aspects of Chinese Communist
Party United Front Work Department activities on Tibetan affairs both
abroad and within China. Perhaps this is a kind of Chinese Wikileak?

Chinese original text follows the translation.

Tibetan Affairs Revealed 2011

The Chinese Communist Party has repressed with armed force resistance
in the Tibetan areas of China, demonized the spiritual leader of the
Tibetan, repressed elite Tibetan intellectuals and greatly increased
its propaganda and united front work abroad with these changes:

1. The shadow of the 50-centers [Tr. Note: derisive term for
propaganda hirelings of the Party propaganda department, which
allegedly pays 50 cents for each party friendly posting attacking
party critics. End note] has appeared in Chinese language media in
North American and Europe. They have bought some internet services
established by Chinese people in order to make propaganda for China’s
Tibet policy and to criticize the Dalai Lama.

2. The Central Committee’s United Front Work Department regularly
sends Tibet experts to the United States, Canada, Australia, and many
European countries. Most of these experts are scholars from the China
Tibetan Studies Center and leading cadres from the TAR Propaganda
Department. The China Tibetan Studies Center is directly subordinate
to the United Front Work Department.

3. Sending song and dance groups abroad for the Tibetan New Year. The
PRC Embassy in Kathmandu has held Tibetan New Year celebrations for
several years, last year they added a new program, giving over 100
Tibetan compatriots red envelopes with USD 100 in each envelope. Since
2006, Tibetan performers have been sent to Switzerland every year,
exciting protests against them by Tibetans in Switzerland, so they
confine their activities to a small area.

4. Every year groups of Tibetans are organized to travel around China
to see the sights, eat and drink.

5. The Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs (under the State Council)
since 2010 has taken part in Tibetan compatriot work, and has send
groups to Nepal, Switzerland and other countries to corrupt the
Tibetan compatriots.

6. The All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese invites not
only overseas Chinese from various countries but also Tibetans to come
back to China to take part in conferences, to be propagandized about
China’s Tibet policy and hear criticism of the Dalai Lama and “Tibetan
independence”.

7. It has become harder for Tibetan compatriots living abroad to come
back to China to visit relatives. The paperwork for coming back to
China is complicated, after filling it out it is necessary to wait for
it to be approved in China. The application goes to the TAR United
Front Work Department and is approved only after the local police
station determines that the relatives do not have any political
background. Then the United Front Work Department issues a TAR permit
that makes it possible to travel to the TAR. This takes at least 3 –
4 weeks and many Tibetan compatriots living abroad have been refused
permission to travel to the TAR to see their relatives. There are four
units authorized to issue TAR entry permits: the United Front Work
Department, the Travel Bureau, the Commerce Bureau and the Foreign
Affairs Bureau (that is the TAR Foreign Affairs Bureau).

8. Thirteen Tibetan compatriots living abroad participated in the
TAR’s “Celebration of the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Peaceful
Liberation of Tibet”. Five were from Switzerland, two from Nepal, one
from Australia, one from Sweden, two from the UK, one from Italy, one
Tibetan just returned to China. I won’t mention the names here.

9. The All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese is in name a
civic organization but it is really an arm of the United Front Work
Department. Since 2007 it has been charged with doing the Party’s
propaganda work on Tibet. It has already been determined that there
are eight secret members among Tibetan compatriots in foreign
countries: two in Switzerland, one in Nepal, one in Taiwan, one in the
United States, one in Germany, one in the UK, one in Italy. I won’t
mention their names here.

10. The State Council Overseas Chinese Affairs Office has a new
initiative, setting up a foundation for Tibetan compatriots so as to
persuade them to come back to China to study Chinese. This year there
are two Tibetan compatriots who returned from abroad to study Chinese
— one is in Chengdu, one is in Kunming.

11. The United Front Work Department has sent people as PRC diplomats
to those countries where there are larger numbers of Tibetan
compatriots. They have special funds at their disposal and are not
under the guidance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Most of these
officials are Tibetans. The United Front Work Department, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Central Committee’s Propaganda
Department do not cooperate in their Tibetan work. Currently, the
United Front Work Department has two people in New Delhi, one in
Djakarta, two in Kathmandu, one in New York, one in Zurich, and one in
Ottawa. I won’t name them here.

12. Since March 14, 2008, all the telephones in the Tibetan areas
have been monitored. The security departments have installed advanced
equipment that detects certain key words in the Tibetan words. If
these words appear in a conversation, the equipment automatically
sends an alert to the security departments that can then refer to the
recording. Dissidents and suspected people are subject to 24 hour
telephone monitoring. Some of the key words are Dalai Lama, freedom,
independence, organize, India, Dharamsala, explosion, gun, fire,
gunpowder etc.

13. In the Tibetan areas, issuing ordinary passports to Tibetans has
stopped. There is a strict policy on the issuance of passports to
Tibetans travelling abroad on official business. Since March 14, the
issuance of long term residence permits to Tibetans living abroad has
essentially halted. It has been determined that two were issued — one
to Tagelin of Nepal, who is a relative of TAR Deputy Chairman Jiari
and the other to a Genduo “Rinpoche” who is a close friend to the
“Living Buddha” Papola.

14. The Deputy chief of the TAR United Front Work Department is an
ethnic Tibetan named Suolang Renzeng. In August 2010, he invited to
dinner several Tibetans who had come to the TAR to visit relatives.
Every time he gives people his spiel: contrasting the present happy
time with the misery of the old days, opening and reform, the
excellent situation in Tibet today, the wolves of the “Dalai clique”.
The Tibetan compatriots talked about what the Dalai Lama does and says
overseas and remarked that that is very different from what you just
said. You really should go abroad and have a talk with the Dalai Lama
yourself. Direct contact can clear up many misunderstandings. Before
the dinner was over, the deputy chief, very angry, pounded the table
and walked away.

One year later, in August 2011, Deputy chief Suo invited to dinner
three of the Tibetan compatriots who were participating in the
sixtieth anniversary celebration. What he said was almost completely
the same as what was printed in the Tibet Daily. After reciting the
propaganda spiel by heart, he asked the Tibetan compatriots to speak.
Once again, they disagreed. They said that they (1) disagreed with the
criticism of the Dalai Lama; (2) they came to participate in the
celebration as individuals and do not represent anyone and cannot
represent him; and (3) only allowing me to return to Lhasa but not to
return to my native place is a violation of the policy that you just
stated. This time Deputy Chief Suo didn’t pound the table so as not to
harm the atmosphere of the 60th anniversary celebrations. He just made
a half-smile and raised a glass in toast.

15. Due to the recent successive self-immolations of monks and a nun,
to use the words of the government, many Tibetan areas are on a first
level combat alert. Workers at different bureau take turns on 24-hour
duty and guards and public security presence on important roads has
been increased. There are plainclothes police throughout Lhasa and
more plainclothes police than tourists on the Barkor. If someone dies,
it is hard to find monks to perform a service since the monks are
under tight control.

16. According to reliable information in the TAR Travel Bureau, when
several years ago the Chinese Travel Service in Switzerland set up its
first office, Beijing asked that a reliable Tibetan cadre be stationed
there. After due consideration, it was decided that Cairang Dongjiu, a
member of the party organization department of the Lhasa City Travel
Bureau Party Committee would be sent. He was known for his advanced
ideological position, was a party member, did his job well, and spoke
Tibetan, Chinese, English and German. It was decided that after four
years that another person would take his place and cadres were chosen
in reserve. However, after three years, Cairang Dongjiu vanished. This
made a big impression at the time. Several months later it was found
that he had taken his younger sister, who had come from Beijing to
“visit relatives” along with him to France and “traitorously ran away”
to France where he got political asylum. After this, the travel office
didn’t dare to send any more Tibetan cadres abroad. The foreign
assignments of the two cadres were cancelled. Now one of them works in
Lhasa and the other in Beijing.

17. TAR leading officials and their sons and daughters take bribes
and interfere in the proper operation of government affairs. About 20%
– 40% of the “assist Tibet” funds are stolen. Corrupt officials and
businesspeople even stole all the funds for a small agricultural
project of the Agricultural Science Committee. The next year, when the
accountants looked at the accounts, it was just a formality of making
a bribe and sending along some documents. Later nobody looked into
the matter.

In Chengdu, there are many companies that are involved in writing up
documents for various TAR development projects and make a fortune
doing it. The fee for writing documents for a project depends upon the
size of the project. The fee for a 2 million RMB project is about
40,000 RMB. There is no need to go to the TAR — just give the
company some figures and place names. Just a few days later you will
have a planning document full of graphs. Writing a project document is
the first investment that an unscrupulous merchant makes. Then he
takes the project document and goes to bribe some officials or their
sons and daughters. The standard price is 20% of the value of the
project. If there is competition, it will be higher. Sometimes it
will be necessary to go through some intermediaries. That bumps the
price up, too.
18. The security services often send people to Kathmandu on business.
They know Kathmandu well, it is said that their gathering place is a
certain bookstore in Bodaha.

19. The secrets revealed above are very solemn secrets, please
everyone take them seriously. Before I end this series, let me tell
you a not so solemn secret. A secret of the sky burial site. As
everyone knows, when a corpse is being cut up, in the old days the
vultures would circle overhead and descend only when they hear the
order of the sky burial attendant. Now things are different. Every
vulture has a name and they are called down one-by–one. It is enough
to make you laugh so hard that your teeth fall out. The names are
Tibetan names like Redi, Basan, Pengcuo, Dorje, Tanzen, etc. But the
vulture with the sharpest cry is called Caidan Drolma [Note: Famous
singer and now vice chair of the TAR People’s Consultative Congress. ]
You don’t believe me? Go to the Lhasa Sky Burial site and see for
yourself, this is absolutely true.

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About 高大伟 David Cowhig

Worked 25 years as a US State Department Foreign Service Officer including ten years at US Embassy Beijing and US Consulate General Chengdu and four years as a China Analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Before State I translated Japanese and Chinese scientific and technical books and articles into English freelance for six years. Before that I taught English at Tunghai University in Taiwan for three years. And before that I worked two summers on Norwegian farms, milking cows and feeding chickens.